Q: Did you write the three essays in one go? Is
there any logical connection between them?
A: I wrote them in one go, but I took my time before I published them.
I actually finished writing them at the beginning of 2011. I
wanted to publish them in the middle of the year. But because I
was releasing a new book <Youth>, I thought that there may be some
reactions about me trying to hype book sales.
After the book was out for more than two months, I could wait no
longer because it was going to be 2012 soon.

Q: I spoke to your colleague Ma Yimu recently.
He said that he did not know what you were thinking or doing, but
suddenly these three essays appeared. He thought that this was
very mysterious.
A: Many people thought that I had an abrupt change in attitude.
Actually, my attitude has not changed in any way. Any change is
superficial. I did not change much inside, because I basically
detest extremism. I think any form of extremism is frightening.
In 2010, my attitude was very clear already. If readers bothered
to read my essays carefully, they knew that the so-called change
did not occur abruptly. It has always been inside me.

Q: Did it begin with the essay on Qian Yunhui in early
2011?
A: It was there before the incident, including speaking out on behalf of Sharon
Stone, opposing the boycott of French merchandise and Carrefour and so
on. I have always stood on the opposite side of the people.
But the opposite side in those cases was relatively speaking more
readily acceptable to the liberals or elites. Today I may be standing
on the opposite of these liberals or relatively radical liberals.
I think all this is quite normal, because I don't want to belong any
particular side and be used as a gunner.

Q: Previously you give everybody the impression of
being somewhat incisive, but now you seem to be moderate. Does
this change have anything to do with your maturation or becoming a
father?
A: I don't think so. Because I think that when a person becomes a
father, he should have even less to fear because he has already
completed the mission of leaving
behind his genes according to anthropology and biology. He should be able to do what he needs to do in
an even more carefree manner. What many people think is the
expression of my conservatism is actually the expression of my
radicalism, because I will offend even more people. That is
radicalism. But no matter how far I traveled on what they considered
to be the radical path, nobody will take action against me as long as I
don't go over their bottom line. That attitude is actually
conservative. Every day, I can scold the ruling party, I can scold
the government, I pander to the masses and I lick the stinking feet of
the public intellectuals. But now I have offended many more
people, including the rightists, the leftists and the masses.

Q: Many people now classify you as a conservative.
A: Many people think that China is very conservative. Actually I
think that China is very radical. In the experimentation with
various manmade systems, China is more radical than many other nations.
I don't want society to be in an environment of radicalism. Of
course, I love democracy and I love freedom. I love these things
more than anyone else. But I am skeptical if you say that we can
elect a president via universal suffrage overnight or have multi-party
rule overnight. My skepticism makes the liberals unhappy.

Q: How do you view the division of intellectuals into
leftists and rightists?
A: Overall, the rightists are better. The leftists have never done
anything good, and they never do anything charitable because they only
try to appease their masters. But the rightists have a lot of
flaws. You can see that the leftists are very united. They
may be moronic, but they are united. But the rightists are always
busily fighting each other. That is why people say that scholars
can never make a revolution. They may share the same views but if
they differ on some microscopic details, they will fight each other to
death. Either you kill me or I kill you. This is how the
rightists fall short.

Q: So where do you stand?
A: Who cares where I am? Anyway, I am different. I
will say anything I want, because I am not afraid of offending anyone. It
used to be that I only offended leftists. But right now I am
offending certain ultra-rightists and radical rightists. That is
no big deal. The people stand in the middle, and it does not
matter if I offend the people.

Q: In your follow-up essay, you say that you will not
try to please anyone except your daughter.
A: Yes, to please my daughter only. Actually that is a joke.

Q: Did you try to please other people before then?
A: I did. I had concerns. Sometimes, you need to check out
the discussion forums. The leftist forums are unreadable, because
only stupid people go there. I go mainly to the more liberal
forums. For the sake of safety in China, I will definitely stand
with the groups that have the loudest voices. I am more famous
than they are. If I say the same things as they do, they will
surely think that they have found a spokesperson and they will applaud
me -- so awesome, too correct.

Q: You become safe then.
A: Yes, because they hate the authorities and they criticize the
government. But there is nothing basically wrong with that.
In the case of Qian Yunhui, I underwent some changes. Based upon
my assessment of the government and my knowledge about vehicular traffic
(including my analysis of the photos) -- even though I greatly respect
village chief Qian Yunhui -- I thought that there was an 80% or 90%
chance that this was merely a traffic accident. But the social
elites subconsciously excluded that possibility. Later on, many
people began speculating about how the vehicle was traveling. I
thought that they were totally non-expert, because I was more
knowledgeable than they were about car skid marks. At that time, I
realized that intellectuals had another shortcoming -- they assumed
"guilt" first and then they "deduced" how the crime must have taken place. This was
not being very objective. This case caused a great change in me.
Therefore I wrote an essay titled <Do we need the truth, or do we need a
truth that meets our needs?>. I thought that the radical rightists
needed "a truth that meets their needs" and that made them no different
from the government telling lies. I used to be very happy to be on
their side, because I felt that we share the same viewpoints -- we want
freedom, we want democracy. But later on, I discovered that in
their quest for freedom and democracy, they are frequently
uncompromising, unnegotiable and sometimes even unobjective.

Q: Apart from the case of Qian Yunhui, did anything
else affect you?
A: There were similar changes in 2007 and 2008. At the time, I
firmly believed that Chinese society must elect the Chairman by universe
suffrage. All my essays were criticisms of the authorities.
At the same time, I would also express my disappointment with the
people. But that kind of disappointment was hidden deeper down
inside those
essays. For example, I said that the biggest obstacle on the road
to democracy is the people themselves, and other similar things.
But nobody detected that at the time.

Q: From the concerns that you had at first to having
no concerns now, do you think that you have surpassed sectarianism?
A: Yes, I don't care. Only what I think matters, and I don't care
if you call me leftist, rightist or Fifty Cent Gang member. It
does not matter. But the radical rightists are completely
different. If you say one sentence that they disagree with, they
will drop you into the Fifty Cent Gang camp. This is how stupid
intellectuals can be. They don't know how to unify people.
They can't allow any sand particles in their eyes.

Q: You got kicked multiple times this time. How does
it feel?
A: I don't care. I won't really be a Fifty Cent Gang who pledges
loyalty to the State and the Party. I will always have my own
judgment. I believe that more and more people will think like I
do. Only then can society be ready for reform, as opposed to the
emotional right-versus-left, black-versus-white dichotomy.

Q: The <Global Times> chief editor Hu Xijin and
<People's Daily> both praised you publicly.
A: It was wishful thinking on their part, and they have obviously
misunderstood. Only those who have criticized the authorities can
criticize the masses. Without the former, there cannot be the
latter. If you don't criticize the government, you are not
qualified to criticize the rightists. <Global Times> is
unqualified.

Q: Your January 8th blog post <My 2011> is your
response to the the public reaction to your first three essays?
A: It does not count as a response. I may write an overall
response in the future, because the response itself will be troublesome.
Among those who stand opposite me, they are comparatively more
dangerous.

Q: Who are they? What do you mean by the danger
from the opposite side?
A: That is to say, some people will disapprove of me and insist on
promoting their universal values. Of course, I very much agree
with some of these viewpoints. But the problem is that this is
relatively more dangerous. If you obstinately insist on promoting
your perfect universal values, it means that the ruling party must be
overturned. This will be somewhat more dangerous for them, getting
them into trouble. Therefore I did not pursue this discussion.
I only expressed my own viewpoints.

Q: At one point will you make an overall response?
A: Actually I don't need to make a big case. For intellectuals,
this is like the card game "Struggle against the landlord."
Everybody wants to fight the landlord.
But the landlord usually holds good cards in his hand, while the
intellectuals hold lousy cards. During the process, the
intellectuals compete to play their cards because they felt that the
landlord will surely lose and each intellectual wants to be the first to
finish the struggle by playing all his cards. Instead, the
intellectuals end up killing each other. Even before the
landlord plays a single card, the intellectuals have already run through
their best cards.

Q: You once said that the first two essays were
padding, while the last essay was the end goal?
A: If you only write the last essay (including <My 2011>), it will surely
be deleted. When something gets deleted, it has no value.
You can boast on the heroes' honor roll that you wrote another censored
essay and that you were victimized once again. Many rightists rank
themselves on the basis of the degree of persecution. This is a
somewhat pathetic ranking. The ultimate height in sexual
intercourse is the climax. You cannot let someone climax as soon
as they read it. You need your padding.

Q: Did you ever consider that your padding would be even
more controversial?
A: Yes, but this was what I really thought inside. I don't care
about how controversial it might be, because I am saying what I think
and I am being faithful to my inner self. Whether you agree,
applaud or criticize is unimportant. And I have improved greatly
as a result of the many criticisms.

Q: Which rational criticisms?
A: I won't say that they are criticisms. I would say that there
were some kind of discussion. Many of the discursive essays were
of high quality. Later I will present those that I think are
correct on my blog, so that people can look at the issues more
rationally as opposed to being fixated on certain asinine problems (such
as questioning whether I had studied enough, or saying that my daughter belongs to an immoral
family). I think that this is risible, too nitpicking, and
impossible to conduct any discussions with. First of all, no
matter how much I love my daughter, this is still my own life and you cannot
tell me what I should or should not do because I love my daughter.
Those who always spout theories are quite dangerous. Sometimes the
extreme leftists and rightists are quite similar. The extreme
rightists may take a stance because of justice or universal values; the
extreme leftists may derive benefits and protection for their stances.
Intellectuals and dictators have many similarities and they have the
same flaws which are shared by humankind. Only moderation,
compromise and negotiation -- plus tolerance -- will let these things
come and blend together; otherwise these things will always be just a mess.

Q: Your previous essays on various matters were
frequently praised. But these three essays led to divergent
opinions. Some people say that you have disrupted the intellectual
sphere.
A: Actually this is a problem with the intellectual sphere itself.
"Intellectual" is a good term which should be preserved. When a
country undergoes transformation, the intellectuals and society elites
serve major functions. After the ruling party loses authority and
trust, it is up to the intellectuals and society elite to create a good social order. But nobody wants to admit that they are
intellectuals or society elites now, because those two terms have taken
on pejorative meanings.
They look down on me, because I did not have advanced education and I am
not doing academic research. Therefore I am unqualified to discuss
democracy and freedom. In theory, I must have read more books than
ordinary citizens. If they look down on me, they must be looking down on
ordinary citizens even more so. Yet they want the people to stand
behind them. Therefore, they are rife with fundamental contradictions.
Even as they speak of democracy and freedom, they forget the spirit of
freedom and democracy. The first thing you need to do is to
respect people's lives, but many intellectuals disrespect lives that
they dislike. Secondly, apart from respecting each individual, you
must also realize the importance of compromise and negotiation within a
democratic system. If you neither compromise nor negotiate, then
you are just using the terms "democracy" and "freedom" as cover and you
do not have the spirit of freedom and democracy. Freedom and
democracy can only advance with continual compromise and negotiation.

Q: Apart from the intellectuals, you have also stood
on the opposite side of the people this time. You said that this
was a problem about the quality of the citizens. Were you
concerned?
A: Our assumption is that the people are stupid. In any social
transformation, we cannot mobilize the people first. Once the
people get mobilized, things run out of control and some people want to
become leaders.

Q: Therefore, you feel that social progress cannot
depend on the people but need the elite intellectuals to achieve?
A: Yes. But the current problem is that the elites and the
intellectuals are even stupider than the people. They have merely
read a few books. They don't even know who the people are or where
the people are. They study the French Revolution, they study
the glorious revolutions, they study Czechoslovakia, they study
American democracy, but they don't know who the Chinese people are or where
they are. They don't have the patience to hold dialogues with the
people of China.
Naturally everybody applauds studying democracy, because it is not wrong
and it requires no debate. Since I represent justice and human
universal values, you cannot criticize me. If you criticize me,
you must be a Fifty Cent Gang member. I become the embodiment of
justice and correctness. Of course, this is a truly meaningful
correctness as opposed to the correctness claimed by certain ruling
parties. In truth, I think that this is still divorced from
current reality in China. Universal values should be implemented
in accordance with current local conditions. England implements
the English way, America implements the American way and China must
implement according to current conditions. Universal values are
not wrong, but we ought to study how to attain them. During that
process, there has to be certain compromises. You cannot expect
the rulers to kill themselves and give all their money to the people in
one fell swoop.

Q: Under the existing conditions, what are your bottom
lines?
A: My bottom lines are, firstly, opening freedom of speech; secondly,
expanding personal rights and protecting society; thirdly, eliminating the so-called crime of subverting the state. These
are the goals that I strive towards. Fourthly, the Chinese
Communist Party needs a better supervisory system against their own
corruption. They need to control the costs due to their
corruption. For example, if you earn 5,000 yuan per month in wages
and you spend one or two thousand yuan on a meal. I think that is
alright, because Chinese society can afford it. We don't need to
be as clean as they are in Hong Kong or America. But you cannot
spend several hundred thousand yuan, several tens of millions yuan on
meals. During the process of compromise and negotiation, those are
my goals.

Q: You don't have any demands on who the rulers will
be in order to attain these things?
A: Yes, I don't care. You will need a much stronger authority/leader
in order to overturn the current regime. When that time comes, how
would I know what kind of leader that might be? When you have tens
of billions of yuan on state resources under your control, might you be even
greedier? My hopes for the rulers arise because I no longer treat
this regime as the one that it publicizes itself to be. I
treat the regime as an objectively existing entity -- call it the
Communist Party or some other party. Revolution is actually about
regime change. During the process, there will be a new leader with
several decades of social turmoil. The Chinese people do not like
these kinds of social turmoil. Rather than that, I think that it
is better to follow the developments of science and technology and let a
new generation grow up and build a society that has rule-of-law and runs
smoother.

Q: Have you heard of the "Cult of Han Han"? They
are saying that you are a religion.
A: I am definitely not that. As my readers read my essays over the
years, they will basically learn how to think independently. They
are very different from those cultist fans. My supporters surely include many people who are relatively not so smart, but I believe that
their average degree of rationality should be more than that of the supporters of most
public figures.

Q: You will be thirty years old in 2012. Who do
you hope to influence more?
A: It is hard for one person to try to influence another person.
Often times, one is just looking for someone like oneself and people
agglomerate together this way. You want to find someone not because you
want someone to influence you. You want to find someone who can
communicate with you more or less, or else it becomes mere adoration.

Q: He Sanwei said that you regard yourself as a
youthful teacher who discusses the most important issues of our times.
He thought that you shouldn't talk that way.
A: If I won't talk about them, who will? Besides, what
would you like me to talk about? Should I discuss a bunch of
books? I can write boring essays that nobody will understand.
These old liberals say that this society is hopeless and desperate, and
they form their own small circle. Some outsider comes in and has views
different from theirs. (Sigh) They feel that this is uncool.
This is their own shortcoming. I don't care.

Q: Do you read a lot?
A: Hmm, how shall I say? I spend three to five hours a day on
reading each day.

Q: What do you read?
A: I think reading magazines or browsing on the Internet is one form of
reading. You don't have to hold a copy of the book <On the Spirit of Law>
in your hands to say that you are reading. A person can skip academic books, but he
must read various types of information. At the same time, you must
"cover many areas as possible" and that is especially important. You should do
all this, so that you won't fall into extremism. I began reading
all types of books since I was a teenager. When I take an airplane
trip now I will buy a dozen or so magazines. I read 50,000 to
100,000 words a day. The more you read, the more you recognize the
gaps in your knowledge. I totally admit that I am the type of
person who swirl around in a half bottle of water. When I was in
junior high school, my teacher told me so. I said, "Teacher, you
are completely right. But their bottle contains eye ointment
whereas my bottle is a thermos flask."

Q: Ma Yimu says that you tend to get your ideas
through direct personal experience as opposed to absorbing them from
academic dissertations.
A: Since 2007, I no longer use literary quotations in my writings.
This does not mean that I am completely ignorant about literary
quotations. When I wrote <The Three Gates> and my earlier essays about
the new ideas, I cited dozens of literary quotations, including many
from books that I find unreadable. I thought that this was cool
and showed that my essays were sophisticated. Later on I realized
that this was meaningless. It was very immature to toss quotations
around. I promised myself later that I will not do so again.

Q: Do you communicate with the "relatively moderate
rightists" in China now?
A: No. I don't like to have dinner or meet people, such as those
who would want me to overthrow the regime. They ask immediately, "Overthrow or
not?" I would say, "Oh, let me think about it ..." There is
no way to conduct a conversation when they begin by putting themselves
as the righteous side which stands for universal values. But I
think that I have a strong premise here: I want to say that these are
good people, but these good people have their flaws.

Q: In your essay, you said that you will fight to
realize your rights all the way. But your essay <On Freedom> is
being summarized as "freedom can only be achieved" by begging on your
knees.
A: I have always been challenging the edge of freedom of speech, because
that space can be expanded only through pushing around the edges. For a
writer, if you don't censor yourself, you are showing your contempt
about the censorship. When nobody in the world censors themselves,
censorship is no longer effective. I have actually been doing
that. In my writing, I am freer than most people. I don't
think that I want the absolute freedom. But I wonder if the many
friends, media workers and movie makers can band together and apply
pressure on the rulers.
It is silly to debate whether I am demanding this standing up,
kneeling down, or whatever. For example, suppose I conduct a sit-in: if I
go to the Ministry of Culture, you ask why I am not at the Central
Department of Publicity; if I go to the Central Department of Publicity,
you ask why I am not at Tiananmen Square ... I think that this kind of
attitude is most petty and repulsive. These people don't do
anything
themselves. I dislike such "talking salespeople." "Talking
salespeople" often put on the mantle of morality and seize the moral
high point.

Q: Many people care more about how you want to realize
your literary freedom this coming year. Are you really going to
hold a sit-in?
A: I might. I have been pented up for a long time. I can't
stand it. I really can't stand it. I have a daughter now.
I think that I can do these things now, because I am leaving enough
money for my daughter. Let's wait and see. Let's see how this
situation develops.

Q: There is outside speculation that your essays
were penned by Lu Jinbo, and that you are produced and packaged by Lu Jinbo.
A: You clearly don't understand me if you say that everything about me
was created by Lu Jinbo. The magazine <Solo Chorus> was published
by Huawen Tianxia, while I have another book published by Shengda
Literature. Neither were Jinbo's products. If Jinbo created
and packaged me, all my books would be published by him. When I
compete away from Shanghai, I sometimes spot a slogan or sentence that is
similar to what I wrote ten years ago. I will call my dad, give him my blog's password and tell him to delete it
in order to satisfy myself. If someone else is writing my essays, I will
surely go crazy.
Actually, my essays have their own developmental process. I started
writing at 17 and I am 30 years old now. It is only normal for
changes or improvements to take place. You cannot ask
the 30-year-old me and the 17-year-old me be identical in order to meet
your requirement for "consistency." For someone who just got out
of school at 17 and spent the next 13 years outside, I would be a moron
if I am still writing like the 17-year-old who had just dropped out of
school.